Several years ago I was talking to Ginger, a hard-living European Kimberley resident. He had been in the region for many years and had lived with Aborigines, more by default than by choice. Regardless, he was at pains to emphasise how tolerant he was of Aboriginal ways, how he tried to treat ‘blackfellows just like they were white’. As if to underline this he added that he'd ‘always give a blackfellow a smoke’. Here lay his recent gripe. He explained that he had always been a careful drinker (‘not like the blacks, they can't hold the grog, once they get the flagon…’). Unfortunately, on this occasion he had been arrested for public intoxication, sharing the cell with a group of about 15 Aborigines who were in various stages of intoxication and recovery. While for them this was a familiar experience, for Ginger (rather surprisingly) it was the first time. By morning he was in considerable distress, seeking relief where he could find it: ‘there was this bloke that I kind of knew who was pacing up and down. I was burning for a smoke and I see he had one going. So I went up to him and said “hey mate, how about a smoke?” Then the bastard turns around and tells me to go get a job!’

Ginger was in no condition to appreciate the humour of the ironic inversion.